Cross Words

Please consider taking out a subscription to @DailyMail to encourage them to print articles like this by Brenda Power. We need all the media we can get to give us a voice. dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1…

🎉 Can you believe it’s been six months since we launched Athena? We set out on an intense and demanding path: to bring into the open the steady mainstreaming of gender identity into European law, policy, funding and strategy, shaped behind closed doors for over a decade. With your support, we’ve published a report, policy briefs and statements, more than a dozen articles, engaged with MEPs, campaigned at the Council of Europe, and generated over 50 media features across Europe. To mark our first six months, we have something special for you: ‼ We are giving away 30 exclusive Athena pins! 🎯 15 to new subscribers 🎯 15 to our existing supporters Subscribe on our website as a monthly donor and send us a short message [contact at athena-forum dot eu] from the email address you used to subscribe, telling us why you support Athena. We will draw the winners after Easter 🐰 and contact you by email. Pins will be mailed within Europe. athena-forum.eu/donate/

TL;DR: the EU is funding projects that frame women’s rights defenders as “anti-gender”, undemocratic and even fascist-adjacent. This is what we observed inside an EU-funded event (Horizon Europe project CCINDLE, €2.5M+): A sense of alarm around “anti-gender” as a major threat to democracy dominated the presentations. Loaded and never properly defined or examined terms, including “fascism”, “hatred” and “denial of the right to exist” were thrown around by presenters as rhetorical props to amplify the dramatic effect of “anti-gender”. After all, dramatic effect is what the event required to compensate for its remarkably shallow presentations that neither provided any concrete evidence, nor attempted to disaggregate or analyse the actors lumped together as the “anti-gender” movement.“ athena-forum.eu/updates/the-en…

2 articles this week on gender identity in 🇮🇪schools 1️⃣@irishdailymail details experience of detransitioner socially transitioned in school 2️⃣@IrishTimes prints opinion by teacher who doesn’t understand the issue Pls read the Mail article @conorsmurf👇

Two comments in the statement on the IOC policy by Transgender Equality Network Ireland (TENI) that we'd like to address: 1. "TENI will continue to work with sports bodies and clubs around Ireland to ensure that sports are inclusive, safe and fair for all." While TENI continues to lobby for the inclusion of males in the female sport category, there cannot be safe and fair sport for women and girls. Will TENI acknowledge this and lobby the GAA to ensure men's Gaelic football and hurling are safe, welcoming and inclusive spaces for all males, regardless of how they present or identify? Or will TENI continue to demand male inclusion at the expense of fair and safe sport for women and girls? It is time for Gaelic Games to show leadership - as Irish Rugby did in 2022 - and prioritise safety and fairness for its female athletes. 2. "We want everyone to be able to head off to GAA, or soccer, or swimming, and know that they will be accepted as part of that community no matter who they are." We are in complete agreement with this. Male and female players who are trans-identifying should be made to feel safe and welcome, playing in the correct sex category. This is the version of inclusion that is truly 'inclusive, safe and fair for all'. Incidentally: the GAA doesn't have a policy that allows trans-identifying women to play men's football and hurling. Why is TENI not outraged by this, as it is when men are excluded from the female category? We know why.

And yet the Ladies Gaelic Football Association continues to deny fair and safe sport to women and girls. Shameful.

The campaign to restore fairness has been long and hard. Women like us across the world have been denigrated for calling for fairness in sport. Now we are vindicated. The Countess organised a letter signed by international groups and individual athletes and campaigners like Martina Navratilova, Sharron Davies, and Riley Gaines, which was sent to the IOC in advance of the 2024 games to ask for immediate reinstatement of sex screening, as we knew there were two boxers who were not female in that competition. We also sent a delegation to Paris to protest at the fact that those two male boxers were allowed to compete in women’s boxing on the basis of ‘passport sex’. We co-signed letters by @ICFSport to Kirsty Coventry and the IOC imploring them to do the right thing and now that they have, we will keep campaigning for women and girls in Ireland and internationally to have fairness, safety and dignity in Sport.

1. Know what a woman is. ...

It speaks volumes about how deep misogyny runs through Gaelic Games in Ireland that the sporting organisation which sanctioned female boxers being punched in the face by men has now decided to protect female athletes yet the Ladies Gaelic Football Association does not.

The Ladies Gaelic Football Association didn't ask women if they were OK with men in their sport. In fact, management deliberately kept them in the dark. When the then chief executive, Helen O'Rourke, sent deails of the policy to each county board secretary, she issued the following instruction: "The proposed policy and supporting documentation is NOT FOR CIRCULATION TO CLUBS AND MEMBERS as it must first be discussed and approved by Central Council." A majority vote of 80 or so delegates who had no proper understanding of what they were voting for and who were not given the opportunity to consult with players, signed away fairness and safety for women and girls. Not only was there no democracy - there was no consent.

Were we women a "Bunch of bullies looking for an soft target" @LeoVaradkar? The soft target was surely Angela Carini when Khelif boxed her. As you know, she was made to apologize. Can we expect an apology now from you post the IOC announcement?

Since @conorsmurf doesn't appear able to reply: @IrishTimes

A little reminder that the busy bodies guide which tells children age 8 upwards that they all have a gender identity is being sent out to primary schools by the department of education oide.ie/wp-content/upl… The literally are creating and promoting gender confusion in kids.

This is very concerning - the Constitution states that the family is the natural and primary educator. What respect is being shown to parents by @1Hildegarde and the Dept of Education by smuggling in gender identity ideology? gript.ie/parents-are-no…

@conorsmurf I am going to reply to this here as this person has me blocked. Myself and 6 other women self funded a conference on this topic this month. Please watch our videos youtube.com/channel/UCkhlV… We are not trying to silence, we want discussion. We want truth.

Excellent letters praising Brenda Power for her piece in the @irishdailymail yesterday. She demonstrates time and time again integrity as a journalist. Given heavy gender identity ideology promotion that's rare indeed. @IrishTimes @wicklowwomen4w1 @TheCountessIE @conorsmurf

Sir, Conor Murphy writes that words are important yet relies on vague terms such as ‘culture’ and ‘differences’ to avoid describing specific, immutable characteristics like race, sex, ethnicity, and disability, before conflating these attributes with self-declared identities. These are fundamentally different things: one is objective, the other subjective. (Why do we tell others what they should call themselves? Tuesday, March 24) Comparing the use of nicknames to using incorrect sex-based pronouns is unconvincing. If Patrick wishes to be called Paudie, this is simply a diminutive; it does not alter any underlying fact about him, nor require others to address him as anything other than he is: male. If some in his classroom take issue with the phrase ‘boys and girls’, straightforward alternatives such as ‘everyone’ or ‘students’ includes all without distorting language. Respect matters, but so too do clarity and coherence, especially in education. Privileging one person’s subjective feelings over another’s understanding of reality is a real tension that he fails to address. Yours Sandra Adams

LOCATION ANNOUNCEMENT 📢📢: Drumroll please....BELFAST! The great women of Northern Ireland will be protesting #OneYearLater on 11th April at the City Hall. Please support these brave women as they are supporting us & give @ni_wrn a follow. #SupremeCourtRuling #SingleSex101

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Ken O'Flynn, independent TD for Cork North Central and former Mayor of Cork, is one of the few TDs willing to stand up and say out loud what has now become unsayable: that biology is real. This is him speaking at our Conference on 7th March. Thank you, Ken. @kenoflynnTD youtu.be/Jfe26wBDW38?is…